


True in Colour

by dannihowell (iguessicantry)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iguessicantry/pseuds/dannihowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan and Phil are soulmates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True in Colour

Age 2 

“Look! He’s Vero in coloure!” Mrs. Howell exclaimed when she placed her baby son, Daniel, on the blanket next another little boy.

Mrs. Lester’s eyes widened when she saw her own son illuminate. The term ‘Vero in Coloure’ meant true in color, referring to the phenomenon that occurred when two humans met their soul mate. The effect was everlasting so long as the two were together. Depending on the strength of their connection, some people were vero in coloure even when their partner was across the room. That bond was more commonly seen in adults who had been together a very long time. It had to blossom and grow.

The two children in question stared at each other until little Daniel picked up a block and threw it, causing Philip to cry. Daniel’s lip started to quiver at the sound and he began crying too. His mother hushed him, questioning his actions with a furrowed brow. He wasn’t hurt. Little did she know that seeing Philip in pain did hurt him. Philip eventually stopped crying and toddled up to Daniel’s mother, saying, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

 

Age 4 -

 

Daniel didn’t throw blocks at Philip anymore. No, he took his hand when they played hopscotch in the playground because Philip was clumsy and tended to trip over his own feet when he tried to be even remotely athletic. Daniel found it endearing. Philip spent a lot of his time at Daniel’s house since they’d become best friends. Daniel’s mother was very fond of him and treated him much like she did her own son, ruffling his hair when she saw him come through their front door. She wasn’t afraid to tell him off if he was bad either which wasn’t very often. Usually, they were both in the wrong and had to be taught how to behave. They were still young, after all.

 

Age 8 -

 

“What do you wanna be when you grow up, Dan?” Phil cut through the silence with a curious glance at where his best friend was having an intense Pokemon battle on his GameBoy.

“I don’t know.” Dan shrugged, losing interest not a moment later and setting the machine down on his bed and reaching for the blue bag beside his pillow. “You want any more crisps?”

At their sleepovers, Dan and Phil had many intellectual conversations, even in year 3. That is, Phil would ask something about the future and Dan may or may not have an answer for him. In the night, they glowed together, their souls illuminated. Dan’s only answer was, “I know I’ll be with you.”

The calmed Phil down. “Do you dream sometimes? I do.”

“Yeah.” Dan nodded. It was uncommon for people to still dream once they’d found their soulmate. There was never any need. Having met at such a young age, the pair had only experienced dreams rarely. “Once I dreamt I was Sophie. Wouldn’t it be cool to be a dog?”

“I don’t know. Dogs don’t live as long as us.” Phil informed him knowingly.

Dan’s expression morphed into a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked desperately, his tone demanding an answer. “Sophie’s gonna die?”

“I mean– I dreamt that one day when we’re bigger, we’ll live together and have sleepovers all the time.” Phil said quickly, doing his best to avoid the subject altogether. He knew his mother worried about how hung up he was on death sometimes but it wasn’t like he did it on purpose. The thoughts just popped into his head unannounced.

“We will! And we won’t have to go to school or anything.” Dan grinned, throwing himself back onto his pillows and closing his eyes.

“I like school.” Phil reminded him. “Can I still go?”

Dan shrugged. It didn’t make any difference to him. “Yeah, if you want. I’m gonna paint and draw all day instead.”

“You only ever use blue.” Phil protested, failing to understand why Dan wouldn’t use the whole variety of colors before him. He had a whole rainbow and then even more but he stuck to blue and it confused Phil to no end. “Don’t you want to use any other color?”

“I like blue.” Dan said simply and Phil didn’t ask again.

 

This was the biggest reason why Dan didn’t like school. They said he had to use new colors in his drawings and that he was hogging the blue crayons. They didn’t understand that he didn’t need the other colors. Dan didn’t tell him he only like blue because it reminded him of Phil. His dreams aren’t just filled with the blurry movements of his puppy Sophie. There were filled with blue eyes, freckles, and a half smile.  Strawberry-blond hair that was steadily turning a similar brown and skin luminescent because they were always together in his dreams. Always.  

 

Age - 12

 

Dan’s baby brother was born on a Monday. He was attention-grabbing and Dan started to feel a little stupid for being jealous of an infant. The first day of high school came out of nowhere after a summer of spending his days and nights at Phil’s house. They have three classes together, one of them being art. Dan still only used blue, only occasionally adding white, black and grey to the array. During the black and white unit, Dan was marked absent and Phil’s light dimmed because he was sat outside the door waiting for him.

 

Phil was sad sometimes Dan noticed. He didn’t laugh as much as he used to and stopped using the entire rainbow in favor of fading watercolors with little conviction. Once, Dan tried to cheer him up with a chalk heart colored every shade of blue he could find. It earned him a feeble smile which vanished so quickly it might not even have been there at all.

 

When Dan’s brother turned one, Phil had stopped coming over completely. Dan followed him home some days and fell asleep on superman bed sheets that were changed once a week without fail. Phil’s mother doted on the two them and kissed them both goodnight. She didn’t bother telling Phil he couldn’t have friends over on a school night. Phil was slowly losing his grip on the world, permanent marker and oil pastels gone, replaced by chalk and watercolor. When once he was a bright azure, now only dull periwinkle. Dan kissed his cheek in the low dim of their light and said good night. Phil kissed him back.

 

Age - 15

 

“Sit still!” Dan scolded but he couldn’t keep a smile off his face. Phil still had that effect on him even now.

“I’m trying!” Phil giggled, smile bright like his eight-year-old self. “It’s hard. I’ve been sitting here forever.”

Dan shook his head in disbelief. Phil had absolutely no patience whatsoever. “It’s only ten minutes. How do you expect me to paint a proper portrait if you can sit still?”

“Okay, okay.” Phil sighed, giving in. He paused for a moment before adding, “Hey, Dan?”

“Yeah?” Dan looked over the top of his canvas to catch Phil’s eye. He looked uncomfortable and Dan wondered if he should let him change positions until he realized that wasn’t why.

“Use something other than blue, please?” He asked quietly and Dan shook his head.

“No, it suits you.” He stated firmly.

“But I’m not blue!” Phil pressed, his face incredulous. He’d never understand Dan’s obsession with blue. “I’m light brown, like french cream, sometimes white. Pink when I blush and green when I’m jealous!”

“And now you’re orange!” Dan took a handful of orange watercolor from the art kit his mother had bought him. He never used it until now, wiping Phil’s face with it.

“Dan!” Phil groaned, dragging his fingers across his face in a vain attempt to clean himself up again. Dan’s amber eyes scrunched shut from laughing too hard and Phil took some of the yellow and drew a heart around his face. Phil burst into a fit of giggles at how ridiculous Dan looked.

“Phil?”

“Yeah?”  
The room filled with the brightening aura of the Vero in coloure. The light was soft not blinding so were their lips, meeting for the first time. Clumsy fingers unbuttoned schools shirt and pulled on ties. Colour spread across skin and bodies across brown sheets on a brown bed in a beige room. The light sketch on the easel is forgotten for printing red crescent moons on pale skin and pink blotches of love on a tanned neck. Phil’s painted hands held down Dan’s now yellow hips and dragged his rose coloured tongue over the boy. A red-hot fire set ablaze igniting from clear saliva and a dark wet mouth, leaving white clouds over light-brown skin. Colors blurred and more white added, their light still brightened.

The door opened and Dan’s mum called them, walking into the room. “Dan? Phil?”

“Shit!”

 

Age - 18

 

“You can’t go!”

They were sat together on Phil’s bed before Dan jumped to his feet, fists clenched. He was angry, of course, he was, but he was more shocked and frightened than anything. After all, his soulmate was leaving him behind to make something of himself and Dan was stuck in a dead end job in Starbucks. The stress had always been too much for him to handle. Exams had slipped away through his paint-splattered fingers. Art was his release. Still blue. Blue didn’t get him through school. He hadn’t even bothered applying to half of the universities Phil had done. They’d never want someone like him, someone who couldn’t even handle GCSEs, never mind a proper degree course.  
“It will only be for a few years,” Phil said gently, hoping to keep Dan calm if he remained so himself. “You can visit. I’ll come back on holiday.”

Dan dropped his gaze to the ground and sighed. “Why do you have to go to York?” He mumbled miserably.

“Because…”

Dan grabbed the green university sweatshirt away from Phil’s hands. His father had announced his acceptance by buying the sweatshirt giving it to him the moment he and Dan walked through the door.

“You’ll call?” Dan asked, biting his lip because that made it sound like he was okay with it and he was most definitely not okay with it. He was scared. He was scared because Phil had once asked him what to do if your soulmate shone for someone else and he’d dismissed it as an impossibility but now he had doubts.

“And text.” Phil promised.

“Video chat?”

“And tweet.”

“And write letters?”

“And send telegrams.”

“Okay.” Dan agreed eventually. There was no getting around it. Phil was leaving and all Dan could do was brace himself for the inevitable fading of his light. He’d rarely been without it. He wasn’t ready to learn what it was like for the people who lost their soulmates.

 

That autumn whilst red, orange and yellow littered the grey pavement, brown boxes filled up a small van with a crying a blue-eyed boy refusing to let his boyfriend go.

“Phil, we need to leave now if we’re meant to be there by noon. Dan will see you later,” Mrs. Lester urged him.

By the time later arrived via Skype call from Phil’s dorm room, Dan was already starting to fade.

 

Age - 20

 

Phil took notes in blue pen.

Sometimes, he drew temporary tattoos on his skin in permanent marker. Stupid name, really. It wasn’t permanent. It faded away just like he did every time he closed the lid of his laptop to hide Dan’s false smile. He couldn’t stand it without him, working to get somewhere in life while those around him discovered the ones they were destined to be with. A girl called Kathy had asked him once why he didn’t try searching for his light. He didn’t have the words to tell her how there was already a boy back home who made him feel things he’d never imagined he could.

Having spent his entire life no further than two blocks away from Dan at any given moment, being miles apart was difficult to adapt to at first. He called, as promised, and emailed and texted and wrote letters in rainbow colors so Dan wouldn’t suspect a thing. He got letters back in smudged blue lowercase. But they didn’t erase the ache in his chest and his head and his fingers which longed to press Dan’s body up against his own and show him that he loved him without ever having to speak. It didn’t bring them closer.

When Phil woke one morning to find his skin grey, he cried into his pillow and didn’t bother getting up. Sophie died and he wasn’t there to comfort Dan. He made a vow then that he’d never let himself be without Dan ever again.

 

Age - 25

 

They married on a white sand beach at dusk; the sky pink, purple and red. Blue eyes matched the water and as the sun set, their light made a beacon for the festivities. They weren’t the only couple under the tent but they shone the brightest. Champagne filled crystal glasses, silverware tapped on the side to bring attention to the happy couple. They kissed shyly in front of their guests and an old school friend named Chris whistled, soliciting a dark pink blush from Phil.

Dan still painted in blue, avoiding grey at Phil’s request, and the color accented their wedding day.

“Even though we’ve only been married for a few hours, it feels like we’re celebrating our anniversary.” Phil sighed dreamily and Dan could see where he was coming from. They’d been together for so long. Marriage was simply a formality.

  
  


Age - 30

 

Phil had been grey for three days. Not grey like he’d been at university when Dan had been a couple of hundred miles away but actually devoid of any spark of colour at all. Even his eyes were grey. No more blue. No more twinkle. No more light.

Once the shock had worn off, he was thrown back into the mindset of his twelve-year-old self but this time he didn’t have anyone to kiss him on his red and yellow sheets. He’d walk through their home and stumble into Dan’s studio, his fingers tracing over half finished projects and dirty paint brushes.

Dan was on his way to the supply shop to pick up some tie-dye. The lights were red but the driver didn’t stop and Phil kept imagining how frightened Dan must have been when he saw the green paintwork rush against him. Red and green contrast, they don’t belong together. They clash and crash. Red blood over green paintwork dripping onto dark dirty black roads isn’t beautiful. Dan went grey in an instant. Phil didn’t have to wait for the news. He could pinpoint the exact second the world stopped turning from the jump of his heart and the way he suddenly became translucent.

He felt dizzy all the time and he’d stopped eating. He missed the sensation of welcome nausea caused by spray paint fumes that Dan fell in love with when they were sixteen, graffiti fueling a small rebellion against the art department. The paint made him sick and now he wished he could just feel. He wished Dan would walk through the door and brighten, illuminate and touch his skin.

 

After he’d gone grey for one month, he started a ritual. On the first of every month, he held vigil for Dan. He lit a solitary candle but it shone bright like a thousand of them. For just one evening in the lunar cycle, under the midnight blue skies, Phil felt a glow surround him.

He did this for years and one night he saw a man on the other side of the graveyard bringing flowers to memorial identical to Dan’s.  The man, also grey in color, introduced himself as Simon.

“Phil.” He told him, mainly to be polite.

They fell into a silence for a just a moment before Simon said, “Lonely without him.”

“Yes.” Phil nodded as if it wasn’t obvious. Of course, he missed him. You don’t just stop missing someone who meant the world to you.

Simon sighs before he asks casually, “Who was your light?”

“Dan.” His name is bittersweet on Phil’s tongue. “You?”

“Eric.”

“Sorry.” Phil said because there was nothing else to say and Simon shrugged like it wasn’t killing him inside.

“I’ve never felt so lackluster, lifeless.” Phil went on sadly. “I had known him my entire life.”

Simon almost smiled at that. “I found my Eric five years ago. I wish I had a lifetime with him.”

Phil shook his head. “It would hurt ten times more.” He sighed and he believed it was true. He didn’t think he’d feel so lost had he not grown up with Dan’s hand in his own. There was another silence before–

“Fancy a coffee?”

 

Age - 50

 

Phil loved Simon. He did, like a best friend but he wasn’t in love with him. Simon felt the same way about him. They’d never be in love again but this kind of relationship dulled the ache of a grey life. They’d visit the cemetery, on the first of every month, and spend an hour with their dearly departed before going home again. Dan’s studio went untouched for decades. The colors especially the blues were blinding, painful. Living without color for twenty years didn’t make the feeling lessen. Phil continued to dream like when he was a boy, even more so now that Dan was gone. His memories were bright, vivid, lively. In his dreams, he would see brown eyes, chestnut hair, the white of his perfect teeth, blue-stained fingers and glowing tanned skin. There is always truth in color. They were always together in his dreams. Always.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr  
> [danni-howell](https://danni-howell.tumblr.com/)


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